'99 percent' protesters target GE

'Clearly this is a major project. This is one direction for the occupy movement'

Published: 04/25/2012 at 9:18 PM

(MSNBC) — Several dozen protesters who gained access to the annual shareholder meeting of General Electric in Detroit disrupted the start with chanting Wednesday morning before being removed by security. Meanwhile, hundreds more protesters gathered outside.

The protest — coming a day after a similar one at Wells Fargo’s shareholder meeting in San Francisco — illustrated one of the new strategies taken by the Occupy movement and its offshoots.

The Occupy movement, which set up large encampments in public spaces in cities around the country in 2011, was largely forced to leave those sites in the fall and winter. Many of the same activists are taking part in other types of civil disobedience and protests against what they consider corporate greed, money-driven politics and social inequity.